Research Admissions (PhD/MTech(Research)) 2022

Important News

  • The Provisional Merit List for the Research Interviews has been posted (3PM, 28 May, 2022).
  • The list of candidates (Application ID) selected for the Phase 2 of the research admission process (in-person interview at CDS, IISc between 23-27 May is available here. Please attend as per your call letter.

Important Dates

  • Email from CDS informing the shortlisted Candidates about information sessions and aptitude test – Sent on 29 April 2022
  • Online Information Session about CDS, doing research, interview preparation – 3 May 2022 (Tuesday) at 4 pm. Recording is available on the YouTube Link.
  • Online Information Session with ATCG, CMG, QUEST, AMCL, BioMedIA Labs in Aug 2022 cycle – 4 May 2022 (Wednesday) at 4 pm
  • Online Information Session with CSL, DREAM, MARS, VAL, VCL labs (accepting only EECS background students) in Aug 2022 cycle – 5 May 2022 (Thursday) at 4 pm
  • YouTube Playlist with Lab Introductions is here .
  • Online Research Aptitude Test – 10 May 2022 (Tuesday) at 3 pm.
  • In-Person Oral Interviews  23-27 May 2022

Application Eligibility

  • B.E./B. Tech. or equivalent degree in any discipline, or
  • M.Sc. or equivalent degree in Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences, Electronics, Instrumentation, Computer Science, or
  • Masters in Computer Application or Graduates of 4-year Bachelor of Science programmes (B.S).
  • GATE/NET JRF score is required for students with a BE/BTech/B.S/M.Sc./MCA.
  • GATE/NET JRF is not required for students with a B.E./B.Tech/B.S. from Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (IIT/IISER/NIT, etc.), with a minimum CGPA of 8.0 out of 10 applying for a Ph.D.
  • Students with a B.E./B.Tech/B.S. are eligible to apply for a direct Ph.D. This is encouraged.
  • Complete details are on the IISc admissions page.

Overview of the Admission Process

Research activities at the Department of Computational and Data Sciences (CDS) are categorized into two streams: Computational Science (CDS-CP) and Computer and Data systems (CDS-CS). The admissions process is common to both streams.

The admission process for the Aug 2022 cycle comprises two phases. Phase I will be an online aptitude test on the HackerEarth platform, which serves as the first part of the evaluation and Phase II will be an in-person oral interview for all candidates who qualified in the aptitude test conducted in Phase I.

Candidates shortlisted for the online aptitude test (Phase I of interview) will receive a call letter or email from the IISc Admissions office (please login to the IISc admissions portal and check for the call letter). The aptitude test is scheduled on 10 May 2022 (Tuesday) at 3 pm. You will receive a separate email from the CDS department for your test and instructions such as the test link, rules, guidelines, practice test, etc. This online aptitude test is of 75 minutes duration. This will have multiple choice and programming questions as per the syllabus given below. 

The Phase II in-person oral interview is only for students who qualified in the online aptitude test conducted in Phase I. The day after the aptitude test, an email with the results will be sent to you. In case you qualify, your interview date and session will be as listed in the call letter from IISc Admissions Office. The syllabus for the interview (similar to the aptitude test, with lab-specific readings) is also given in detail below.

About a week before the oral interview, the shortlisted candidates will be sent an email from the CDS department to fill out an online student information Google form. This must be completed and submitted in order to participate in the oral interview. As part of this, candidates should choose up to three labs for which they will be considered. These labs are described below. Orientation sessions and lab introductions to help candidates make the right choice based on their interest will be conducted online through webinars for which shortlisted candidates will be invited.

Pre-interview familiarization of CDS and lab introductions will be conducted through webinars and dates will be displayed on the CDS Research Admissions Website.

Online Aptitude Test

The Phase I online objective and programming test will be conducted using the “HackerEarth” online platform. Candidates will need a desktop/laptop with an internet connection, Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers, and a webcam. Candidates will be sent an email with a link to the online test a few days before the test date. The test will be enabled at the start of your session and will last for 75 mins. It must be completed in a single sitting. You will need to create a free HackerEarth account to take the test. You MUST use the same email address as the one used for your IISc Admissions Application. Please do this ahead of time. That email will also have another link to let you take a practice test, to test your browser and webcam, and get familiar with HackerEarth. These practice questions are not from the test syllabus. Candidates may take the practice test as many times as they want. Candidates should get familiar with the programming IDE, compilation, and testing interface of HackerEarth to ensure that the programming questions are attempted properly.

The online aptitude test will have 15 questions. There will be 12 multiple choice questions and 3 programming questions. The topics for the objective test are:

  • Combinatorics, Linear Algebra/Matrices, Probability and Statistics, Differential Equations, Plotting, Data Structures and Algorithms.

The programming languages that you can use are C, C++ and Java. The HackerEarth interface will allow you to type the program, compile it and run test cases, all within the browser. We will provide a basic code template for reading and writing the inputs and outputs for each problem. The candidates should focus on the actual code logic and brush up on concepts such as if/then/else conditions, for/while loops and arrays/data structures.

Students are encouraged to first solve the problems that they are comfortable with and then move on to more difficult problems.

Sample questions from previous year tests are available here.

In-Person Oral Interview

Students who qualify in the online aptitude test (Phase I of the interview) will attend an in-person oral interview at the CDS Department, IISc (Phase II of the interview). In the oral interview, you will be questioned on the following basic topics, and on advanced topics that are based on your lab preferences:

Basic Topics: Linear Algebra; Probability & Statistics; Programming, Data Structures, Algorithms; Numerical Methods; Ordinary Differential Equations; Discrete Mathematics.  Final year undergraduate level preparation is required.

Advanced Topics: You will be questioned on the topics related to labs selected in the student information Google form. The topics for each lab and the prior training expected are listed below. Candidates choosing a lab must be prepared on at least one of the lab-related interview topics.

Note: Most labs give preference to applicants for the Ph.D. program over the M.Tech. (Research) program. Some labs may not even take any students for the M.Tech. (Research) program. Students with a B.E./B.Tech degree are also eligible to apply for the Ph.D. program.

Candidates for the Ph.D. program should prepare well on their fundamentals, come with a focus and knowledge of the research areas they would like to target in their PhD, and have clarity on the preferred lab(s) and the kind of work done in them. Review the research topics and the papers from the labs you are interested in.

The 2022 Research Admission Brochure can be viewed here:

CDS_Brochure_Aug2022